What is a phobia?
Phobias are persistent and intense fears of a particular:
object
person (like a doctor or clown)
situation
activity
If you have a phobia, you may experience severe anxiety and panic attacks when you’re:
exposed to the object or situation you’re fearful of
thinking about the thing you’re afraid of
anticipating an encounter with the item you’re scared of
thalassophobia even in video games. I almost drowned as a toddler so maybe that’s why idk.
Heights and tight spaces make me tense and sweat
Agoraphobia but mainly it’s limited to too many ppl in touching distance.
Don’t know if it related to that but I have to always have an exit plan. I always take my car so I know I can leave at any time I sit on the end of aisles if I can help it and 9 times outta 10 if I’m indoors I know exactly the exit I can head for if I have too
Edit I also will go out of my way to avoid calling anyone by their name. IDK if that’s a phobia but it just feels to personal or invasive to do.
Are… are you me? Because from first paragraph to last, this is 100% me.
(Although to be fair, I grew out of the name-thing some time ago, thank fuck.)
The exit plan is absolutely agoraphobia. I got that too. Gotta sit at the end of rows. Gotta plan my exit so that I either get out before the crowd, or after. Prefer car-vacations over planes or ships. My impresssion from the psychiatrist is that any fear that makes us feel irrasionally trapped, thats agoraphobia.
I do that too. But because I’m really crappy at remembering peoples names. And those few times I do remember I’m just not used to it. I really should work on this because repeating peoples names does make it easier to remember them.
Submechanophobia. No matter how much I try to rationalise, water grates in pools raise my heart rate.
Deathly scared of buoys.
Anyone read how a few divers went to explore weird pillars in a lake, only for one of them to get sucked into a nuclear plant water intake? Jesus wept. (He lived, somehow.)*